Imago
by PerennialChild
Summary: Post-Mizumono. Even separated by oceans, even without any lines of communication, Hannibal and Will find ways to speak to each other. Chapter 3: "I never knew anything about wine." "Yet I am a connoisseur of the dead. Have a taste."
1. Chapter 1

**Imago**

_A/N: This seemed like the obvious fic idea, so I apologize if it's already been done!_

Summary: Even separated, even without any lines of communication, Hannibal and Will find ways to speak to each other.

In his dreams, Will smells like rain and water. Damp leaves and petrichor and blood. But not only that. He also smells of Abigail, and Alana, Freddy's pungent perfume, Jack's files, and Hannibal's own cooking. He carries around the scents and thoughts and influences of all the people in his life, and Hannibal finds it hateful how their ghosts cling to Will, even here, in Hannibal's own mind.

Their chairs have moved by the fire, and Hannibal watches Will's notes burn for the second time. What was written on them is no use to him anymore. They never were, never managed to capture Will in totality.

"You're alive," he says quietly. Somehow, it was expected.

"I letyou kill me," Will answers, and it's as good as confirmation. Will didn't die, because that would have made him victorious; Will was never truly victorious. He had come running expecting to die, and had let Hannibal see that, that last manipulation before Hannibal moved to reopen the wound on Abigail's neck. Hobb's scar belonged to him now, and her death as his daughter was also his. He would that he could claim Will in the same way.

Will isn't content to stay by the fire. Head tilted curiously, he re-inspects this space, hands running over all of Hannibal's belongings, feet scuffing over the skull on the floor.

"An elaborate momento mori," he observes. And it is. Almost a copy of Alexander Mair's 1605 cut, done in thin gray strokes to give it the appearance of a pencil drawing. But there's a difference; a heart, flush and alive, hangs in the otherwise empty ribcage. When Hannibal stands up to move beside Will, it seems to clench.

"You asked me if I could be happy here. Could you?"

Will smiles bitterly "I need a stream"

"You could have the Seine."

"That's not the same."

"No." He glances at Will's throat, then his stomach. Considers which route would cause him more pain. "Should it be? You have nothing to escape from here. You're quite safe."

Will just laughs, his head ducked down and smile curling bright between the raised hills of his cheeks. "Oh, oh," he gasps, then looks up. Hannibal sees neither mirth nor malice in his look—his eyes are mirrors. "I was never safe. Not here with you. Not even in my own mind."

The heart clenches again with a wet, warm sound.

"Tell me how happy you are with your freedom, Dr. Lecter," Will says, "That you spend your time looking for me in here. Is your freedom better than a prison cell?"

_I miss you, _Hannibal almost says, but the words wither on his tongue. He steps over the noisy clenching heart, and with a snarl pulls the shirt from Will's back. The wound he made runs long across Will's stomach, ugly black sutures holding his bowels in place. Will's hands wrap around his own before he can push his fingers in. They're not restraining; they simply rest there, a sort of acknowledgement.

"_You _did all this," Hannibal accuses.

"I let you do this."

Hannibal hooks one of his fingers inside the wound, frustrated when Will rocks his head into his shoulder instead of crying out.

"I feel I must have completed the Haus Tambaran," Will whispers against him, breath catching as Hannibal hooks another finger in. "You ate me as a boy and expelled me a man. The only evidence of my transformation— the scars from—your teeth."

The rhythmic sound of the heart beating on the floor threatens to drown out Hannibal's own labored breathing. Three fingers now. Will is trembling. "Are you a man now, Will?"

"Are you a crocodile?"

Will's hands leave his wrists and slip under his shirt to push into the cut across Hannibal's own stomach.

"I could reach up and pluck out your heart," he tells him.

Now, when Hannibal shoves the rest of his hand into the convulsing wet, Will _does _cry out.

"I could do the same."

Hannibal wakes with both his stomach and his chest burning. Even in his dreams, Will lies.


	2. Navigation

**Chapter Two—Navigation**

The stream is barren, and too clear. Will sees white sphagnum moss waving slightly in the current and packs up his fishing gear, knowing the only fish he'd find here would be dead.

The Ravenstag's calcified corpse lies on the embankment next to his tackle box. A statue, a momento. Or perhaps something else entirely. A caterpillar as it goes into chrysalis only hardens its outside shell, while internally it is breaking down, making something new from the decayed soup of the former beast. He can almost see it, imaginal cells converging under the surface, reassembling into a shape invisible from the outside.

_From death to new life. Yet people aren't butterflies—we undergo constant transformation. _

A creature—the wendigo— crouches next to it as if taking its pulse, before turning to Will and morphing into another familiar suited figure. It's almost surprising.

Will still senses the fear, ever present, a throbbing, clawing thing. It's disconnected from him now, somehow. Remote. So his gait remains even as he approaches, and he sets his fishing rod down with an almost careless gesture before sitting with his friend by the cadaver. He turns his face towards the brutally clear water, and away from Lecter's searching look.

"You're petulant," he says.

"You've let me into the deepest parts of your mind, and imagine I come to pollute the safe spaces you've made there." Hannibal pauses, and Will keeps his eyes on the dead water, unwilling to acknowledge the regret pooling between the words. "That was not my intention."

"I know what your intentions were. You wanted me _aware._"

"Aware of what you were doing, yes. Aware of the truth I saw inside of you. Retreating from your nature harms you, Will."

Will scoffs, jutting his chin towards the stream and the burnt trees on the other side. Acid rain. His life was taken by storm.

"You believed you were offering—bitter medicine." For the first time, he turns to _look_ at Hannibal, who remains impassive, save for one small flicker of the eyes. His hands rise on instinct, and he feels them come away damp from his abdomen. The sound he'd mistaken for the stream rises in volume—somewhat like the rush of water out of a tap, or wet feet slapping at a pool's edge. It doesn't hurt this time. It just aches in the way that every loss does. "This isn't _medicine._"

Hannibal watches Will bleed out with reptilian eyes. A sunning, contented crocodile. He swipes his tongue over his lips. "—No."

A query—or an answer—hangs in the air for a moment, but is cut down by a breath, drowned in the deepening pool on Will's lap.

"Tell me Will, what is it you're retreating from now?"

"Staring at the walls of a hospital room isn't exactly an exciting way to occupy my time." He sighs. "They won't tell me who died. They think if they tell me, I'll stop trying to live."

"Do you want to die, Will?"

That pulls a bitter laugh out of him, and with it a fresh tide of blood. It's deep enough now to have a weight to it, so if he closes his eyes he can imagine it's a small child with a wet bottom, sitting on his legs. "It's. Difficult, for me to know what I want. People expect things from me. You certainly did. And Jack. If I recover, there'll be others. Expecting things. Expecting answers."

"No man can serve two masters. It seems as though you have many."

"I'm my own master." Hannibal gives him a hard look, so Will changes the scene.

A ship, rolling in tumultuous waters. There is no illumination save from the stabbing pinpricks of stars overhead, and the pallid belly of the moon. Will stumbles towards the rail on the starboard side, still bleeding. Loss ought to be painted over his entire body by now. "I'm not a victim of my own head anymore, or other people's ideas of me. I _won't_ be. I just need a direction to turn in."

"Allow me to navigate."

"I don't trust you."

"Nor I, you."

"And I don't care if I'm _happy_ or not with what happens. Damn happiness. I just want to steer myself."

At those words Hannibal stills, an ancient reptile coiling itself together before bursting from the water to drag down its prey. He remains steady, though the boat rolls beneath them, forcing Will to clutch to the railing. He grimaces back at him, coiling his own body. He would not lose control.

"I'm gonna start by setting a course for you."

_A/N: Aw, no organ fondling this chapter. _


	3. Torrent

_A/N: Sorry for the delay between chapters. I was busy with finals, and then had something of a breakdown. I will try to make more regular updates in the future._

The waters are flat as a mirror, yet reflect nothing of the stark sun or the black of the dinghy lying stationary on its surface. Will curls his fingers into his seat, a weave of interlocking, velvety bone. A boat of antlers—both useful and grotesque.

"You said you were setting a course for him. Looks like you're going nowhere."

His doppelganger speaks with his voice, but the inflection and cadence belong to another. It's as familiar as it is unwelcome. Will hardly affords him a glance, instead looking over his shoulder to find the place where water kisses the curve of sky. His gaze is uninterrupted, uninhibited. It's soothing, the emptiness. Not so much as a distant island to break the isolation, to compel him to steer.

"Seas of blood…" It ripples like prairie grass, crimson and glimmering in the naked attention of the sun.

"Don't be dramatic. This isn't the end of days." The other Will dips a crystalline cup into the depths, bringing back a liquid which stain his lips and teeth red. He draws the cup away with a flourish. "Think water into wine."

"I never knew anything about wine."

"Yet I am a connoisseur of the dead. Have a taste."

The cup is pressed into his hands, sucking warmth from his fingertips. He swirls the liquid once, twice, then draws it up to his face. Inhales. Rust. His eyes open, and he _sees._

_MarissaSchurNicholasBoyleInstrumentsWingsTotemGeorgiaMadchenDrSutcliffeAbigailHobbsBloodFireFungiClawsTeethRandallTierTheJudgeGutting—_

He rips the cup away from his face, watching it slosh over the rim and dribble over his fingers.

"Heady and sweet. Not like whiskey." The other Will smiles, and there's something in it, something which prompts Will to bring up the glass again, let the drink slither and slide down his throat.

It _is_ sweet. He grimaces.

"Where is he?"

"I threw him overboard. Don't look so upset. It's what you asked for. You needed to make some decisions by yourself."

"I didn't plan on _killing_ him." He doesn't know whether he's lying.

"Looks like you don't plan on doing much of anything. Took your agency to vegetate. You're sleeping in excess of 18 hours a day—your primary nurse thinks it's depression. Freddy Lounds says it's bereavement."

"_She'd _know."

"Perhaps she would."

Time passes, and Will dips the cup into the scarlet liquid again, just for something to do, just like how he'd sip coffee and check his empty cell when a conversation became tedious and he didn't want to make it obvious he wasn't contributing. Down again, like swallowing silk. Blood rushes to his skin, temporary warmth, then cold. A telltale burning begins in his core, and he settles deeper, more loose-limbed into his seat. The sun climbs higher in the sky, assaults the skin on his upturned face. The dinghy remains unmoving, perfectly still in the water. He considers a third glass.

"They say Florida is where all the burnt-out retirees go." The other Will's upper lip curls around the words.

"He's fucked me over enough times. Him and the FBI. I'm not shackled. Maybe I could just—settle down."

"And start a family?"

"Couldn't I?"

"Ever wondered what makes you so desperately fatherly, Will?"

He didn't, he wouldn't, but a form is rising up before him anyway, bone structure, then flesh. Like a pendulum swing on a burn victim.

The boy is small but scrappy, wearing a slightly oversized shirt and grimy jeans, eyes slate grey and too perceptive. Will remembers the feel of the clothing, the way the jeans stuck to his thighs and chafed when it rained. The wrinkles in his sleeves that wouldn't smooth out even in the oppressive lake humidity. There is no innocence in his expression, and Will hates it, hates him.

"You're trained in psychology, aren't you? Call this therapy."

"Bit too Freudian for me," he says behind his teeth.

"Be honest. Don't you want this child?"

His jaw works, his lips tremble open and closed, without sound. He shakes his head.

"Come on, now. Don't you want to protect this boy? Tell him how much he matters, how he isn't too sensitive or strange? You think you'd make a good father, don't you? You honestly believe that?"

"I don't want _him_. Not this child."

The boy's lips open, and Will flinches at the familiar words that trickle out.

"I'm a dirty little beast, freak, hare lip, and no one will ever love me."

"Damn straight." With a laugh, the other Will tosses him over the side.

Will leaps to his feet. His double speaks over the wet, thrashing sounds.

"Do you ever feel like you're drowning, Will? All the time, right? All of those _emotions_. The ones you have to keep down and suffocate until dead, like placing grasshoppers in glass jars. You end up just treading water, don't you?"

Will shucks his shirt, then his shoes.

"You have two options in this scenario!"

And dives in.

It's not cold, not even lukewarm, but has a heat that insinuates itself against him, clings tightly to his hair and his shorts. An unrelenting pressure that threatens to drag him under the surface, into visions that he has the option, for once, of escaping.

The boy's arm is slippery, and catching it brings to mind trying to catch frogs in the crick when he was a child. They leapt high, and often got away, but this time Will holds on, drags the body forcibly to the boat and hauls him over. One arm on the rim, and he is confronted again with grey eyes accompanied with smile that doesn't belong to him.

"You can float like this, forever, in a poorly constructed family and a poorly constructed life. You can bend and tear your thoughts into pieces for other people to chew and discard. Or you can live in the torrent."

Will feels teeth enclose around his stomach, and cries out.

"You'll find him in the torrent."

He's torn away, with barely a breath. And it's strange, that the further down he is sucked, the less he feels the rending of flesh, the more the teeth begin to feel like gentle fingers in a gentle caress. Strange, that when he finally resigns himself to death and inhales, he finds he can breathe with ease. That when he opens his eyes to the darkened depths surrounding him, he isn't afraid.

He turns into the embrace.


End file.
